It has been common in the field of meteorology to employ balloons to vertically transport sensing instruments or devices, commonly referred to as rawinsondes, up through the atmosphere so as to measure various atmospheric parameters and transmit data related to these measurements. In accordance with conventional procedures, a balloon is manually inflated with lighter-than-air gas, such as helium or hydrogen, the instrument package is attached thereto, and the balloon and associated instrument package are released to the air. A shelter for inflating the balloon and containing other ground based equipment is normally required. The sensing instrument transmits meteorological data as the balloon rises thereby producing a meteorological sounding used for a variety of weather forecasting and analysis purposes.
Because about 65% of the Earth is covered by water, meteorological sounding stations have been established on islands and aboard some marine vessels. However, meteorological soundings are often required where ships or islands with meteorological sounding stations are not available.
In military applications, there is often an urgent need to obtain meteorological data from land or ocean areas held by unfriendly forces. The deployment of land or sea based personnel into such areas for purposes of providing such meteorological soundings puts human lives at risk and thus there is a need for a method of deployment of such meteorological sounding systems with minimal risk to personnel.
Manned and unmanned aircraft have the capability of flying to points where meteorological soundings are required but present sounding systems generally are not capable of being deployed from aircraft in a manner so as to effectively provide meteorological soundings.